| New OHSAA Rule Allows Transfers To Come Back
By Charlie Boss & Jennifer Smith Richards
November 05, 2009
Courtesy of The Columbus Dispatch
South-Western athletes who transferred to play sports at other high schools can come back this winter if they want.
A new Ohio High School Athletic Association bylaw specifically allows athletes who switched schools after their sports programs were terminated the option of coming back to play without penalty if a district reinstates athletics. Until two weeks ago, OHSAA rules would have required them to sit out a year of sports or stay at their new schools.
South-Western board members took their first steps in restoring extracurricular programs yesterday by voting unanimously to hire 43 coaches for winter sports.
OHSAA officials alerted South-Western administrators and officials at schools that accepted transfer students about the new rule yesterday.
"Please keep in mind that when these transfers were initially approved, it was with the assumption that the students would complete their high-school education at their new schools," Association Associate Commissioner Deborah B. Moore wrote in an e-mail to school officials.
"This message is not to be construed as pressure either to transfer back or to remain in the school where approved," she wrote. "Such choices are best left to the students and their parents."
Normally, students who transfer without moving must sit out a year of sports. But the association makes an exception when a school eliminates athletic programs.
State lawmakers and Ohio's schools superintendent pushed for the change to allow students to return when sports are reinstated, Moore said in an e-mail to the Dispatch. A bill to force the change had been introduced in the General Assembly.
The rule change won't apply to students who established permanent residency in a new district or who are living with a new custodial parent, Moore said. Former South-Western students have until next school year to return to the district.
State Superintendent Deborah S. Delisle didn't want student-athletes to be robbed of options and "harmed by situations that occur in their districts," said Scott Blake, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Education. She is a nonvoting member on the association's board of directors.
A handful of other school districts in the state are in the same situation as South-Western, having eliminated and then reinstated sports teams, Blake said.
Dale Corbett, a guidance counselor and girls basketball coach at Grove City High School, said he received about 25 calls from parents yesterday who wanted to know if their children could return to the school.
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